1894.] H. Beveridge — Major FrancMin')> description of Gaur. 43 



of a route from Bdjmahdl to Gaur, A. D. 1810" — By Major William 

 Franck'lin, Regulating Officer at Bhdgalpur. 



The author was, like Warren Hastings and Impey, a Westminster 

 boy, and was an officer in the army of the East India Company. He 

 was the son of a Clergyman named Thomas Francklin, who was a man of 

 some note in the Literary woi'ld, but who, unfortunately, got confounded 

 with his more celebrated namesake, Benjamin Franklin. Macaulay 

 corrects the mistake, and impales his unoffending countryman on the 

 point of a Greek epigram. The son is well known as the Biographer of 

 George Thomas, and as tlie author of a work on the site of Palibothra, 

 in which he endeavours to identify that city with Champanagar, near 

 Bhagalpur. But the most picturesque circumstance in his life was a 

 tour which he made in Persia in 1786, when he was an ensign and only 

 three-and-twenty years of age. On this occasion he lived for about six 

 months at Shiraz as a member of a Persian family. He became Major 

 in 1810, and a Lieut.-Col. in 1814. For some years he was Regulating 

 Officer of Bhagalpur. Bishop Heber met him at that station so late as 

 1824, and describes him as being a very agreeable and communicative 

 old man, and as tbe possessor of curious and interesting collections. 

 Francklin retii'ed from the service in 1825, and died in April 1839 at 

 the age of 76. At the time of his death he was Librarian to the R. A. S. 



The existence of the report was first brought to notice in late years 

 by Mr. Grote, who recommended Mrs. Ravenshaw to utilise it in editing 

 her husband's work on Gaur. Afterwards Mr. Grote took upon himself 

 the task of annotation, and added many notes from Francklin to Raven- 

 shaw's text. A few years ago, our Society applied to the India Office 

 for the MS., with the view of printing it, if this should seem worth while. 

 The Seci-etary of State for India referred the matter to Dr. Burgess, who 

 gave it as his opinion that all the valuable information in Francklin's 

 report had been already extracted by Mr. Grote, and, in consequence, tbe 

 MS. was not sent to our Society. 



Since then ]\ii*. Beveridge has examined it and compared it with 

 Ravenshaw's Gaur, and agrees with Dr. Burgess. He therefore cannot 

 recommend that it should be published, though it does seem hard that 

 a report submitted to the Court of Directors in 1812, should have been 

 neglected till 1878, and then be superseded by the pith of it being put 

 into another's book. 



Mr. Beveridge then discusses various points of detail in regard to 

 Gaur, touched on by Major Francklin. The most interesting fact noted 

 is that the Chronological Table of the Muharamadan rulers of Gaur, and 

 the Historical Memorandum about them given by Buchanan Hamilton, 

 and reproduced in Montgomery Martin's " Eastern India,'''' ai'e word for 



